Chamjari Interactive, Inc.

Magical Thinking

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 03:58:16 -0800

Building great experiences that people love is hard work. Even though we might romanticize the notion of the "eureka" moment, more often than not there is a slow, plodding, intentional method behind their creation.

And one thing almost all great experiences have in common.

Take a moment today to pause and listen to Don Huely's description of the word, "sonder".

In practice, we ask this a lot of our clients: to stop and notice that the world is filled with stories, each unique and completely valid, told from (now over) 8 billion perspectives.

Product designers yearn to understand this, and yet struggle with both the practice of listening to and considering so many disparate stories, and then integrating them into a single (or at least very limited) experience.

Personas were an earlier solution to this problem, first described in relation to software and product development by Alan Cooper in his 1999 book, "Read More

Human-centered Journey Mapping

Wed, 08 Mar 2023 06:47:04 -0800

What do you mean by “non-Product” People?

This piece is for people in the business of impacting humans, including those of us who don’t make products or have customers.

What’s a Journey Map?

A journey map is a visual representation of the experience a subject has at each step on the way to an end point. The map tells the story of the subject’s journey from their POV, including what they see, think, feel, and do at critical points. We often refer to the subject as the “actor” to frame the map as a narrative story.

What Does Human-Centered Mean?

The "A ha" moment

When inspiration strikes, the temptation to develop that idea into a product or experience can difficult to resist. More so when the inspiration or directive belongs to someone more senior in the organization, and comes attached to a deadline - often as not, an arbitrary one.

When we work with clients on UX and Design Strategy, we counsel a measured approach: work on turning an idea into a testable product, while at the same time conducting research into your audience's needs, desires and goals. Eventually, align the two: when you are certain that the product you've designed solves a problem people have, then and only then can you go to market with confidence that your product will succeed.

Objections to Customer Research

If you've been doing customer research for any reasonable length of time, you've likely encountered one or more of the following objections:

People don't know what they want
We have to show them something, if we're going to get anything useful out of it
We just have to get this to market, and then we'll see
People are bad at predicting what they're going to do in the future
Focus groups just tell you what they think you want to hear
We don't have time
We already understand the customers' needs
We can validate the concept when it's ready for launch

But behind each of these statements is a deeper truth: people with an idea - especially one they think is a great idea - are often reluctant to find out that they are wrong.

Running Up a Debt

So, customer research is set aside. MVPs (minimally viable products) are developed, and put out for "testing" into a market that didn't ask for half-baked ideas that solve only one part of a complex set of problems....Read More

How to Write a Great Recruiting Screener for Qualitative Interviews

Fri, 01 May 2020 14:40:50 -0700

Writing a good recruiting screener can be fairly straight-forward, but there are a few gotchas to look out for. The key is to focus on finding people who will be active, useful participants in your research - which means screening for curiosity, openness, and conversation skills, and not necessarily just basic demographics.

Market Research Recruiters are Powerful Allies

Whenever we work with clients on large-scale research projects, we make use of the...Read More

How To Build (And Manage) Your Own Research Panel

Fri, 17 May 2019 15:05:43 -0700

Although professional recruiting firms can be excellent partners, it isn't always affordable or practical to use them for every research study - and there are good reasons to cultivate your own panel. Doing so takes about 2-3 hours to setup, and about 30 minutes/week to "feed and maintain."

If you spend, on average, $150-$200 recruiting each participant in your existing research studies, this process can save you up to $2000 for every study you run.

Down at the bottom of this post is a tool you can use to collect, manage and track your own participant pool.

It’s important to humans to keep the right balance in an ecosystem. If invasive species, or invasive ideas, were to take over, there could be uncool repercussions.

There are strong feelings about how we should all behave relative to the land. Full stop. I’m still trying to get my head around what a nature conservancy is and why it exists. What is the driver for engagement? Who engages? How? Business model? I’ll be digging into it over the next month during a design residency focusing on member engagement strategies. Fascinatingly, the conservancy is looking to engage people with conserving the land while limiting their access to it (so it remains pristine).

The Transcedent Joy of Planning to Fail

Tue, 09 Apr 2019 13:20:02 -0700

No one starts a project with the intention of ending in spectacular failure. About the only saving grace of most startups is that their failure is less-than-spectacular. Even in well-established businesses, projects routinely run over-budget, come in late, and fail to meet the team’s (and management’s) expectations.

There are many ways to avoid this fate, but one of my favorites is the Project Pre-Mortem.

To Avoid Failure, Plan for It